Should You Build or Buy a Niche Website?

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Should you build or buy a niche website? If this thought crossed your mind, then you’re surely passionate about niche websites. Many niche site builders build niche sites for their website portfolios and earn money from them.

On the other hand, some niche site builders are website flippers. Not only do they build niche sites for flipping, but they buy and flip websites for profit.

I want to discuss whether you should build a niche website or buy one from a niche websites’ marketplace. If it sounds interesting to you, stick around, and you might learn a thing or two about this business model.

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I’m more into building and flipping niche websites, but I want to shed some light on both sides of the niche websites business. I flipped my first website back in 2014, which I regretted later on. Perhaps, I haven’t had a portfolio of websites back then, and selling the only site I had was a bit emotional moment for me.

I learned a lesson that we shouldn’t rely on a single authority blog or niche website. Instead, we must keep building a portfolio of websites. So if I flip a website today, I would have more niche sites to work on.

I’m about to discuss both angles of niche site-building.

Let’s dive deep into both niche website business models so that you could steer your business in the right direction:

Should you buy or build a niche website?

Building a Niche Website

I’m an advocate of building niche websites, but it doesn’t necessarily mean I won’t buy a niche site along the way. I might buy a niche site in the future when I’m in the position to acquire one, but currently, I’m more focused on building niche websites.

I guess building niche websites or blogs is my thing. And, if you’re into building niche websites or blogs too, then you might be interested in finding out what WordPress theme I use for niche websites. Give my Kadence vs. GeneratePress comparison a read; you won’t regret it.

Anyway, I’ll explain why I prefer building niche websites over buying existing websites right off the bat:

Niche selection power

One of the biggest advantages of building a niche site is that you get to choose the niche of your interest. You can’t pick a random niche and write content with an authoritative voice. You have to have some knowledge or experience of the subject matter. Therefore, when you build a niche website from scratch, you have the niche selection power to drive the site in the right direction.

Control over content strategy

Acquiring an already built niche website might be interesting for you, but the experts say that no niche site is perfect and every niche website needs a touch-up. When you build a niche website from scratch, you have more control over the content strategy. You get to choose the article topics, content clusters, affiliate products, and monetization strategies for the site.

Link building from the ground up

Internal and external link building are key areas of establishing a niche website. I’m not a big fan of external link building, but I pay close attention to internal linking. When I build a niche website, I know the topics and articles I published right from the beginning. It gives me a head start from link building standpoint because I already know about the previously published content. You might not have this advantage when you buy an already built niche website.

Pay, Persevere, and Profit (3Ps)

3Ps of niche site business is a made-up thing — let me explain what I mean by that. When you’re building a niche site, you might want to hire writers to scale your niche site, so that’s where you’d pay. Persevere means you would have to be patient about this business model. The site you’re working on passionately might not take off, and you might have to switch to another one, so be ready to persevere. Once things start to work out for you, you’ll slowly but surely start to earn money from your niche site, and that’s where you would have a chance to make a profit by flipping the site.

Buying a Niche Website

I don’t completely right-off the chances to buy a niche website. I might acquire some niche websites in the future, but I’d keep several factors in mind before buying any niche website:

Seller’s Background

Buying a niche website may require a ton of work. You shouldn’t become the victim of shiny object syndrome and immediately close the deal. You’re about to find out different areas to look at when buying a website. One of the things is the seller’s background. Talk to the person who is selling the site if possible and try to find out the following things:

  • What’s the motivation behind building the site?
  • What’s the reason for selling the site?
  • What lesson did they learn from the site?
  • What types of articles are on the site?
  • Is content self-written or ghost-written?

A background check isn’t a bad practice, especially when you’re buying an online property without any website flipping platform. Finding the answers to those questions would give you a glimpse of the niche site builder’s history. If you’re using a website niche marketplace like Motion Invest or any other, they’d likely provide you the website statistics after the examination.

website flipping platformMotion Invest is a fantastic website flipping platform. You can buy or sell small to mid-range niche websites on Motion Invest. Check It Out!

Quality of Content

A site always attracts investors or buyers through its statistics such as monthly pageviews and net profit. Once you’re potentially interested in a niche website, the next thing you should do is audit the content. Look out for the content quality, article depth, website rankings, and content style. If the majority of the articles are listicles with the “Best of” keyword technique in the article titles, then it’s a no-go.

I know some of you would think, why does it matter if the site has decent traffic and net profit? Well, if you want to focus on the short-term gain, you can go ahead with it, but if you want to futureproof your investment, then buy a niche website that has an excellent mix of content. It should have a combination of review posts, response posts, and informational posts.

Above all, the content has to be well-written, engaging, and high-quality. Otherwise, it won’t make much difference that what type of articles are published on the site.

Backlink Profile

Some website niche builders and buyers rave about backlink profiles. Not only do they look out for the backlinks while buying the site, but they also invest in getting paid links on the websites. I have never been a big fan of chasing the backlinks. I believe if you put out high-quality, rich content on your site, you’re likely to get backlinks naturally over time.

It doesn’t hurt to take a look at the backlink profile. I might back off the potential purchase if the backlinks look shady, meaning if they’re on the low-quality sites or are mostly sponsored links on the articles.

Content Images

Images are a serious concern when it comes to buying a niche website. If the niche site has images that aren’t custom-made or properly licensed, then it might be a problem for the new owner. I have heard Jon Dykstra talk about this problem. He even pointed out that images are one of the reasons why he doesn’t buy sites that others have built.

Sure, every niche site on the market doesn’t have image copyright issues, but you have to do some due diligence in this regard while purchasing a content website.

I don’t use any stock photography images on my blogs and niche sites. Instead, I design custom images using Canva to make sure that I don’t run into any copyright infringement problems in the future.

online graphics design tool

Flip Websites for Profit

I have seen interviews of so many niche site builders that buy such sites, publish fresh content, increase monthly income, and sell them for profit.

So you can go down that route if you want to, but it’s not something you must do. Some niche site buyers don’t want to resell sites in the first place. Instead, they prefer to keep sites for their portfolios.

Would You Build or Buy a Niche Website?

I have compared both niche business models so that you’d know what to expect from building and buying a niche site.

I’ve said before that I’m a site builder, but I’m open to acquiring some underpriced, good-quality niche sites. I might as well go ahead and buy a few niche sites in the future.

As of now, I’m more inclined towards building profitable niche websites to sell.

I’m confident that I have helped some of you. If I did, then make sure to let me know via comments. Plus, everyone is raving about investing in cryptocurrencies; I think niche site-building is a better alternative to crypto investment.

Anyway, what are your thoughts on building versus buying a niche website?

What would you prefer? Let me know in the comments below.